Typically, a carrier moving system is a system that moves a carrier loading a vehicle (or a vehicle body) in a process line. Among such systems, a conventional carrier moving system for a painting process includes a loaded section and an unloaded section. The loaded section is where a carrier with a body-in-white (BIW) moves. The unloaded section is where a carrier without a BIW moves (or stays).
The loaded section includes a loading part and a guiding part. The loading part loads the BIW into the carrier. The guiding part guides the carrier with the loaded BIW and may store the carrier with the loaded BIW so as to prepare for a wrong operation of pre-process (body manufacturing process). The unloaded section includes an unloading part and a carrier without a BIW storing part, which is referred to as a CWB storage hereinafter. The unloading part unloads the BIW into a painting part. The CWB storage moves and stores a carrier without BIW (CWB) so as to prepare a call for a carrier without BIW of the loading part. Hereinafter, the carrier without BIW is referred to as a CWB, and a call for a carrier without BIW is referred to as a CWB call.
In addition, the loaded section and the unloaded section have a monorail for guiding a carrier, and are also connected to each other by the monorail. The monorail of the loaded section has a plurality of rounded portions such that many carriers can be moved thereon. The carrier has a plurality of joints so as to move smoothly in the rounded portions.
The CWB storage has an inline type of structure such that the CWB is stored in a row on the monorail in line. On the other hand, if the BIW is not thrown into the loading part while the body manufacturing process line is broken, the loading part does not require the CWB call to the CWB storage. Therefore, the CWB is continuously stored in the CWB storage. However, the CWB storage can not store many CWBs, since the CWB storage has an inline type structure where the CWB is stored in a row on the monorail with inline type. Accordingly, a conventional carrier moving system for a painting process has a problem that a movement of the BIW must be stopped, while the body manufacturing process line is broken.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.